UP cop sacked for thrashing Dalit woman

An officer of the Uttar Pradesh Police who had thrashed a Dalit woman in public glare was on Thursday suspended by the state government.

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Headlines Today Bureau

Lucknow

February 18, 2010

UPDATED: February 18, 2010 18:47 IST

An officer of the Uttar Pradesh Police who had thrashed a Dalit woman in public glare was on Thursday suspended by the state government.

Action against Kailash Dwivedi, SHO of Musafirkhana police station in the state's Amethi area, came after Headlines Today aired the report.

The woman was slapped, pushed, pulled by the hair and assaulted repeatedly by Dwivedi in a bid to extract a confession of murdering her husband.

The woman's husband had died in sleep on Tuesday night. She was picked up on a complaint from the in-laws. When she refused to accept the charge of murder, Dwivedi started beating her.

Even as the woman was being assaulted, a woman constable stood by as a mute spectator. After the thrashing, Dwivedi smiled, apparently at a job well done. But that wasn't the end. "Get a baton and I will teach her a lesson," he said.

Human rights activists were appalled by this brutality. "It's brutal, unimaginable and illegal. No male officer can touch a woman. We will write to the chief minister and meet the DGP," said human rights activist Roop Rekha Verma.

"A police officer abusing and molesting a woman can't happen in any civilised country. How can he wear a uniform and do it?" asked Poornima Advani, former chairperson of the National Commission for Women.

Dwivedi had initially been suspended.

Amethi is the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, who has been visiting Dalit homes all over the state to revive his party's fortunes.

The Congress blamed the Mayawati government for the police's high-handedness. UPCC spokesperson Akhilesh P .Singh said: "Law and order is not the priority of the UP government, which is why policemen act brazenly."